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LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ is an add-on to COMSOL Multiphysics that seamlessly links 3D designs in the PTC® Creo® Parametric™ CAD system to COMSOL Multiphysics model geometries for simulation. Creo Parametric is an industry standard for 3D CAD and includes a comprehensive set of tools for maximum flexibility and productivity. COMSOL Multiphysics with LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ enables you to benefit from the advanced capabilities in Creo Parametric to produce state-of-the-art designs and then integrate them into a COMSOL Multiphysics model for analysis and optimization.

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ updates your design workflow to include multiphysics simulation capabilities that allow you to better understand how your product or design performs in the intended operating environment. Models in COMSOL Multiphysics can include essentially any relevant physical effects and their interactions to accurately simulate your design. LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ includes features to prepare CAD geometries for simulation and to update designs during the simulation process for use with automated parametric sweeps or optimization studies.

Update a Design and Preserve the Physics

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ synchronizes your designs in Creo Parametric with your COMSOL Multiphysics models and automatically propagates design updates while running the programs concurrently. CAD models do not have to be manually exported or imported into COMSOL Multiphysics with each change. Parameters, including part dimensions or placement, defined in Creo Parametric can be iteratively accessed from COMSOL Multiphysics enabling simulations with parametric sweeps and optimization studies. Through direct synchronization, LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ retains the associated physics definitions on model domains and boundaries even when features are updated or added to a design.

Prepare CAD Designs for Simulation

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™ includes the capability to automatically detect and repair geometric anomalies in a design and to perform defeaturing operations to prepare a CAD model for simulation. Predefined tolerances are used during the import of a CAD model to automatically identify problems and make sure that the imported solids or surfaces are correctly defined. Gap healing is also automatic during import to ensure that a solid is produced for meshing and simulation. Small, often insignificant, details or anomalies in a geometry create areas with very dense meshes making simulations less efficient. After a successful import, you can further defeature the geometry by identifying these fine details based on tolerance settings. You can then remove all, or selected, items that meet the specified criteria. Features that you can remove in this manner include slivers, small faces, or edges, and design elements such as fillets.

Virtual geometry operations in COMSOL Multiphysics provide an additional means to reduce the computational complexity in a simulation caused by dense meshes. A virtual geometry is created by selecting small features in a design that you want ignored by the meshing tools. While you are defeaturing a design you are removing small features, and the geometry algorithm covers the resulting holes by stretching or shrinking the surrounding faces or edges. This operation inevitably modifies the local curvature of the geometry object. By using virtual geometry operations you can preserve the curvature, since the surfaces and edges are not removed or modified, only hidden. The simulation mesh on a virtual geometry reduces the required computational resources and is still based on the original design, even in the slightest detail, for those simulation applications that demand this.

Import and Export of CAD Files

Instead of directly linking or synchronizing with a COMSOL Multiphysics model, CAD files can be imported and exported in a range of formats. Using LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™, you can import 3D CAD files in the Creo Parametric formats (.prt, .asm), as well as in one of the widely used Parasolid®, ACIS®, STEP, and IGES formats. In addition, you can import the native files of the Inventor®, and SOLIDWORKS® CAD systems. The optional File Import for CATIA® V5 provides support for importing the native file format for this system. Imported 3D CAD models are converted to Parasolid geometries that can be further modified in the COMSOL Multiphysics environment. Modifications to a Parasolid geometry in COMSOL Multiphysics can include Boolean geometry operations or the addition of fluid domains to a model that otherwise consists of solid parts. When making changes to imported geometry, or even creating your own additions to illustrate a concept, you can always be sure that you can share your work by exporting modified designs in the Parasolid or ACIS file formats for import into other tools.

PTC, Creo, and Creo Parametric are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For a list of such trademark owners, see http://www.comsol.com/tm. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™

Product Features

A LiveLink™ interface that synchronizes between the PTC® Creo® Parametric™ 2.0, 3.0 or 4.0 versions of the CAD software and COMSOL Multiphysics® when both are running simultaneously

The synchronized geometry is associative, i.e., the CAD model can be modified in PTC® Creo® Parametric™ without the need to re-apply model settings in COMSOL Multiphysics® after re-synchronization

Synchronize parameters between the PTC® Creo® Parametric™ design and COMSOL Multiphysics® model to modify the COMSOL Multiphysics® geometry, either manually or as controlled by a parametric or optimization solver

Automatically generate selections on the synchronized geometry in the COMSOL® model from the material assignments in the PTC® Creo® Parametric™ file.

Connect to COMSOL Server™ from within PTC® Creo® Parametric™ to browse and run apps together with PTC® Creo® Parametric™, including those that use geometry synchronized with PTC® Creo® Parametric™.

File import of the most popular CAD file formats, see table below

Encapsulate geometries to model phenomena in the surrounding domains

Export geometry files to the Parasolid® and ACIS® file formats

Geometry repair through identification of geometric inconsistencies and knitting surfaces to create solids

Defeaturing through the finding and deletion of fillets, short edges, sliver faces, small faces, and spikes

Manually deleting faces and healing the resulting gaps through filling (creating a new face) or patching (shrinking or expanding adjacent faces)

Detaching faces from a solid object to create a new solid object

Cap holes or empty spaces to fill the space and create modeling domains

Patch removed faces by growing or shrinking the surrounding surfaces to cover the removed face

Supported File Formats

Note that not all file formats are supported on all operative systems, for details see System Requirements

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™

Deep-space telescopes require ultrasensitive detectors and calibration to pick up weak far-infrared signals. The SpicA Far-InfraRed Instrument (SAFARI), an infrared camera that will fly aboard the Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA), has sensors that measure the far-infrared spectrum. The SAFARI system includes a ...

Deep-space telescopes require ultrasensitive detectors and calibration to pick up weak far-infrared signals. The SpicA Far-InfraRed Instrument (SAFARI), an infrared camera that will fly aboard the Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA), has sensors that measure the far-infrared spectrum. The SAFARI system includes a ...

LiveLink™ for PTC® Creo® Parametric™

Geometric Parameter Optimization of a Tuning Fork

This model computes the fundamental eigenfrequency and eigenmode for a tuning fork that is synchronized from Creo Parametric via the LiveLink interface. The length of the fork is then optimized so that the tuning fork sounds the note A, 440 Hz.

This model computes the fundamental eigenfrequency and eigenmode for a tuning fork that is synchronized from Creo Parametric via the LiveLink interface. The length of the fork is then optimized so that the tuning fork sounds the note A, 440 Hz.

Next Step:Request a SoftwareDemonstration

Every business and every simulation need is different. In order to fully evaluate whether or not the COMSOL Multiphysics® software will meet your requirements, you need to contact us. By talking to one of our sales representatives, you will get personalized recommendations and fully documented examples to help you get the most out of your evaluation and guide you to choose the best license option to suit your needs.

Just click on the "Contact COMSOL" button, fill in your contact details and any specific comments or questions, and submit. You will receive a response from a sales representative within one business day.